SEM Interview Tips For 2013 and Beyond

I originally started this blog with the sole purpose of providing career advice for those in the SEM career path. Since then, I have branched out to cover a variety of topics including tactical SEM tips, conference recaps, affiliate marketing studies, and more. However, I wanted to get back to my roots today and offer some SEM interview tips that are sure to turbocharge your SEM career in 2013 and beyond. January is the start of the big hiring season. New budgets are in place and companies are hiring. I hope these tips help you score your dream search engine marketing job.

Interview In Progress

Know your SEM. Whether you are fresh out of college or you’re applying for a management position, make sure to know your SEM inside and out. You need to go above and beyond. Get your hands on tutorials, become well versed with platforms, and get certified. Arrive at your interview with specific examples and case studies that prove your knowledge of the space.
Stay humble. SEM is a team sport. If you come across as too cavalier, you will not be perceived as a team player. I’m not saying you need to change your attitude and personality. You need to be yourself because you want to get hired where you mesh well with the team. However, I do feel those that are super cavalier would be better suited to work on their teamwork or start their own (small) company. Corporate marketing (or running a larger business) is all about teamwork and staying humble.
Make sure you have mentor(s) in the search marketing industry. Make sure to drop a few names. Our industry is growing at a rapid pace. Your network is everything. If you know and study under the right people, that will score you instant credibility. I currently mentor several aspiring SEM superstars and personally owe my continued success to my network of mentors. Mentors are for marketing professionals of all levels.
Practice math exercises. Make sure you can complete mental math (simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) rapidly. Also, make sure you can answer more difficult questions on paper. Those that cannot perform mental math are going to face headwinds in the analytical field of SEM so make sure to be ready for math questions.
Go beyond SEM. Our industry is evolving. Search marketing professionals are now being asked to manage display, remarketing, social media, email, and affiliate marketing programs. The more you can bring to the table, the more likely you will get the job. Just remember: Depending on the job don’t be too well-rounded. Make sure to flex your deep expertise in the specific focus on the job. If you come across as too diversified, you may appear to lack depth in your knowledge.
Do a practice interview with your mentor. Take your interview seriously. Make sure the questions asked during the practice interview are of great difficulty, especially the math and case questions. Be prepared for anything. Also, practice your speaking so you come across with maximum confidence.
Offer your prospective employer flexibility. In any new position, you will need to earn respect. One way to do this is to work nights and weekends. SEM is a 24/7 trading landscape. If you’re able to take some pressure off the existing team and fill in during odd hours, this will go a long way. If you’re not willing to do this, SEM may not be the right career path for you since it’s truly a 24/7 discipline.
Know the SEM platforms. These days, it’s not enough to understand search engines, APIs, and desktop editors. Now, it’s all about getting leverage and sophistication via SEM platforms such as Inside Vault and Kenshoo. Learn about the platforms as much as possible and bring deep experience to the table.
Bring strong P&L experience to the table. SEM is a fun career path because you get to manage a P&L, especially as you get more senior. When you manage P&L there is zero margin for error. Bring a strong track record to the table. Explain specific instances of your contribution to the top and bottom lines.
Highlight your Ivy League resume. I’m not only talking about your college here. I’m talking about companies on your resume that had significant liquidity events. If you have a strong track record of working at companies that have achieved rapid success, you are typically going to be a more qualified candidate.
Send out thank you notes. This goes without saying. Always send out written (and email) thank you notes following your interview. Even if you don’t score the job, that’s ok. It’s all about building your network and people remember this type of gesture.
Arrive early. Again, one that goes without saying. SEM is all about punctuality. It can be difficult at times to keep pushing 24/7. Arrive to your interview early to show your prospective employer that you have what it takes.
Bring technical expertise. Are you a CS graduate? How about EE? SEM is a technical field. To the extent that you can help build tools and automation, this will go a long way. Demonstrate your knowledge of search engine APIs and your ability to build programs around those APIs. At a minimum, try to master Excel macros.
Perform an SEM audit. Of course this is difficult without direct account access, but nonetheless you can spend a few hours and bring some insights to your interview. Perform an SEM audit of your prospective employer and bring great ideas (with plans to back them up).
Know the company. It’s not enough to know SEM. You need to also understand the company and industry you are targeting. Spend the time to truly research the company at which you are interviewing. Tie this research into your SEM audit (prior point). Industry-specific ideas are often the best ones.
Be ready to build campaigns. There is no better way to test knowledge than to have a candidate build bulksheets. Get ready for tactical questions and exercises.

I hope these tips help out and best of luck in securing the SEM job of your dreams in 2013!

Image of Interview In Progress © iStockPhoto – FugeSpot

Great Online Marketing Networking Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 18 0

I’m a huge fan of search marketing careers. In this business, networking is super important. Just a few months back, I wrote about PPC Networking Tips. Today’s post is a continuation of the networking theme and offers some fresh and new online marketing networking tips. I hope these tips help take your networking to the next level.

Lunch at Cascal, Mountain View With Yahoo!

Invest time in high-leverage relationships. Relationships in any business have different levels of leverage. Some partners are super busy and don’t have as much time to network. This is totally ok, as we all get busy. Other partners, however, are all about networking. You really want to invest where you will get the most leverage (and this may change over time depending on people’s schedules and ability to network). I have always viewed Yahoo!, for example, as an amazingly high leverage partnership. When it comes to partnerships, they are the best of the best. They always make so much effort to help their partners in any way possible. As such, this is a relationship that is always top of mind for this online marketing professional.
Attend happy hours and company events. Online marketing is truly a cross-functional career. As SEM professionals, we work with so many different departments (literally all departments). As such, I try to make all possible happy hours. This is a fun way to truly get to know others in your company. It’s a great way to learn how you can work together as a team to achieve amazing results.
Travel to different office locations. Do you work at a large company that has multiple offices? Try to visit them all! This tip really ties into the last one. As a cross-functional discipline, it’s all about building solid relationships throughout your company. Visit different locations in-person and you will build amazing relationships.
Host events for search engines and partners. We are truly blessed in online marketing. We get to go to so many fun events planned by our friends at search engines. In just the past few weeks, I enjoyed amazing events with Google, Yahoo!, and other partners. Recently, I have been thinking about ways to give back. Why not give back and host the events for a change? Your partners will truly thank you!
Plan team events such as hikes and community service. We all work so hard, and it can truly help break things up by taking off some fun time for team events. Networking with partners and other departments is truly important. Networking with your own team is paramount.
Plan team offsites. This tip is really a continuation of the last one, it’s all about networking with your own team. However, you can also make team offsites about networking with key partners. Consider inviting key partners to your offsite for the ultimate networking opportunity!
Leverage social media to build key relationships. I mentioned LinkedIn in my last post about networking, and today I wanted to highlight Quora. I wrote a post a while back about how I’m Answering Online Marketing Questions On Quora. I have found Quora to be a super social network for building true relationships within your industry.
Send holiday cards and gifts. I wrote a post last holiday season about how Online Marketing Holiday Gifts Rule. Gifts truly do rule and they are critical for networking. Even if you don’t have a huge budget, it’s the thought that counts. With the holiday season on its way, make sure you get cards and gifts for your most important partners.

Image of Lunch With Yahoo © PPCIan.com

Become A Search Engine Marketing Career Mentor

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 27 1

I’m a huge fan of the search engine marketing career path. My career in this great field has been so exciting that I decided to create this blog to empower professionals all over the world and share the excitement! One of my favorite parts of this career is giving back. I have benefited from great mentors over the years and feel strongly about the power of mentoring. Following are a few quick tips on how you can give back and help build SEM careers.

Which Way

Tip 1: Become a people manager. SEM is a fast-paced career path. It’s possible to get promoted and become a people manager quicker than many other careers, if you’re really great at what you do. The best managers are those who truly mentor and give back to their team. Set your sights on people management, not only as a way to grow your career but also as a way to mentor and give back.
Tip 2: Offer your time to help others. We’re all so busy these days and it’s super easy to get wrapped up in your day-to-day campaign management. However, don’t forget to take a step back and offer your time and assistance to others. A perfect example: I spent one hour on the phone today with a good friend I met at SMX. The purpose of the call: Sharing actionable career advice and tips.
Tip 3: Set up a PPC internship program on your team. No matter how good we are at SEM automation, there always exists some level of manual work in paid search. The solution: Why not hire an intern to help out and give your team more leverage? This is a rough job economy for fresh college graduates. A PPC internship program for college students can truly help you pass on valuable skills and give your intern the job experience they need!
Tip 4: Schedule lunches with others. In the paid search career path, it’s important to remember to take a step back. Make sure to schedule lunches with others. I’m talking about people on your team, and also people on other teams. Make friends and see how you can give back and help out. Such lunches are always a two-way street. Leverage the opportunity to build your own knowledge as well.
Tip 5: Invest in informal presentations. This tip ties into the last one. Consider presenting your knowledge and areas of expertise via brown bag lunches. This will help build your public speaking skills while presenting valuable insights to others.

Image of Which Way © iStockPhoto – wildpixel

Going Above and Beyond In Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jul 16 3

Hey Everyone,
I have been posting less frequently lately. Why? Since I got promoted to Vice President, Search Marketing back in March, I have been pushing my SEM career harder than ever before. I worked all day Sunday, all day and night today, and pretty much every waking hour over the past week. The last week has been intense for sure. It has also been incredibly rewarding, my team and I are accomplishing so much.

Long story short, I am doing everything I can to go above and beyond in my search marketing career. I’m giving my company and my team my 110%, nothing less. I have found it to be an amazing cycle. The more you give, the more you get. It only works in that order. Also, I love what I do and I love working at my company so as a perfectionist I find it hard not to give my 110%.

These days, search marketing is becoming more mature as a career path. There’s more competition. It’s just like the Google AdWords landscape. While CPCs rise and new competitors enter the market, you see new SEM experts growing their careers in our wonderful field. How are you going to maintain your edge? Just as you maniacally optimize your SEM accounts, invent new strategies, and push the envelop of online marketing, you need to do the same with your own career. Go all in! Don’t hold anything back, even if it’s at the expense of other priorities. (Of course, this only works if you love what you’re doing.)

Personally, I need to catch up on some sleep and also work out a bit more. That said, I have made some conscious tradeoffs and it’s this type of attitude that will really take you places. Get out there and grind harder than you ever thought possible. That’s how you can go above and beyond in your SEM career. Just remember to also reward yourself, everything goes in cycles and you’ll need an “off” cycle from time to time.

Wishing you all the best!
All the best,
Ian

Three Online Marketing Career Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Apr 12 2

I’m the biggest fan of the online marketing career around. This career has been amazing to me. I don’t think there are too many corporate careers that offer such rapid growth as online marketing, especially search engine marketing. It’s been a while since I’ve done a career post so I wanted to share a few tips today that will help anyone grow within their online marketing career.

Tip 1: Place Your Company First

Career

There may be days that you go into work and think, “What can I do today that will make me shine?” You may wonder, “How can I get noticed?” Those are definitely great things to be thinking. After all, these types of questions are top of mind for anyone looking to progress in their career.

However, I would first recommend asking yourself such questions as, “What can I do today to help my company?” Ask yourself, “What can I do to catapult the numbers forward for the benefit of everyone?” When you start thinking about the company and your team, and place your own career aside, you will be doing the absolute best thing for your career. Your career is closely tied to results and the success of the company. Help build your company and you will in turn build your own online marketing career.

Tip 2: Arrive At Work Early

If you work in the Silicon Valley like me, you may have noticed that there’s a culture of getting into work a little later at some companies. This isn’t the case at all companies, but at some folks will arrive anywhere between 9:30 and 10:30. These same people totally pull their weight and stay late. That said, if you’re looking to grow your career fast, I recommend being one of the earlier employees in the office. If everyone arrives at 9:30, why not shoot for 9:00 am? If everyone shoots for 9:00, why not arrive at 8:45 am? There are a few benefits of arriving early. First and foremost, it’s easy to think clearly and get a jump start on the day. Second, it positions you as a leader, someone who’s dedicated to the company. Third, it’s a great way to have a strong handle on your numbers as early as possible (especially important for those of us in search engine marketing).

Tip 3: Make Time For People

The greatest asset of any company is its employees. In the world of online marketing, it’s so easy to get ultra focused on work. And, that’s a good thing because the work drives numbers and the company forward. However, don’t forget to take some time to form lasting bonds with your co-workers. Make sure to go to lunch with others. Walk around your office and introduce yourself. Work on cross-functional projects. The more time you spend with everyone, the more everyone will be able to accomplish as a team.

I hope you find these tips helpful! While they are applicable to any career path, I have especially found them to be helpful in my own online marketing career.

Image of career © iStockPhoto – PashaIgnatov

10 Ways To Sabotage Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Mar 6 8

Sometimes it’s not about what you do. It’s about what you avoid doing! It’s all about being careful and consciously contemplating your every move. This especially rings true in the high stakes game of corporate search engine marketing. Today I’m going to present 10 quick, effective, and easy ways to sabotage your entire SEM career. Now, just to be super clear, you will want to avoid these bad ideas at all costs and in most cases employ the complete opposite strategy.

Bad Idea 1: Ask For a Raise Over and Over (and Over)

Here’s the great thing about careers in search engine marketing: You typically have free reign over your salary. The harder you work and the more results you deliver, the quicker you will get promoted (and earn a raise and/or bonus). It’s that easy. SEM is super measurable. It’s easy to instantly prove how much value you have added (in terms of raw dollar margin).

That said, I must caveat this in that promotions, raises, and bonuses typically happen within your company’s HR schedule. Most companies have a very set, strict schedule when employees will be evaluated. You want to be conscious about this and avoid asking for promotions off-schedule. Also, you want to avoid being the employee that constantly asks for a raise. If you’ve asked a few times and have not been able to secure the promotion (and/or raise) you’re looking for, it’s unlikely you’ll receive it by asking over, and over, and over. Rather, that’s a sure fire way to annoy your employer. As an alternative strategy, I recommend working harder and then revisiting six months later once you have some more results under your belt, even if you disagree with your employer’s short term decision.

Bad Idea 2: Ignore The Numbers on Nights and Weekends

I like to think of pay per click search engine marketing as a 24/7 Wall Street trading floor. SEM campaigns never sleep. Even worse, campaigns tend to tank on nights, weekends, and holidays (Murphy’s Law). Search marketing is a high powered career that carriers great responsibility with it. Don’t ignore the stats! Your worst fears will come true and you’ll look very bad if your campaigns tank while you’re not watching. As an alternative strategy, try to find a backup (another team member) to watch your campaigns if you absolutely must take some time off.

Bad Idea 3: Do Everything Manually

Time is money. If you go about doing everything manually, you won’t get one third of the tasks completed that you should. Your operations will grind to a halt and your competitors will pass you by. It’s absolutely imperative to investigate PPC automation platforms such as Marin Software and Acquisio. Confused about where to start? I highly recommend checking out my SEM Automation Buyer’s Guide.

Bad Idea 4: Invest Minimal Time In Your LinkedIn Profile

Ever since my first online marketing job, every single job has come passively via LinkedIn. I cannot say enough about the power of LinkedIn when it comes to growing your career in online marketing. When’s the best time to look for a new job, one with a better title, higher pay, and at a more promising company? Of course, when you already have one! That’s the power of entertaining passive job opportunities on LinkedIn. Want to learn more? Check out my post about growing your SEM career with LinkedIn.

Bad Idea 5: Stay Away From Affiliate Marketing

Jobs in search engine marketing are tough. We’re in a high powered career path with a ton of responsibility. When you come home, you just want to kick back, watch Jersey Shore, and then go to sleep. I’m here to say, however, that this is a mistake. Want to keep your edge? You need to learn new skills within other areas of online marketing. What’s the best way to do this? Invest at least a small percentage of your spare time learning all about affiliate marketing.

Want to learn more? Check out my post about how pay per click jobs are changing and then my review of EWA Private Network. Then, get out there and sign up for a great affiliate network, such as EWA.

Bad Idea 6: Avoid Challenging Yourself

Most people in the pay per click search engine marketing field have aggressive, “Type A” personalities. They want to get promoted quickly and grow within the industry. If you’re more of a steady player, this can become a real challenge because the world will pass you by. If you’re looking for a steady career path, SEM may not be your thing. Want to get ahead? Get out there and challenge yourself today! There are many ways to do this such as public speaking, learning new technologies, or simply diving head first into the most difficult analysis ever!

Bad Idea 7: Ignore The Latest Trends and News

I’m a huge fan of SEM careers because they provide a direct avenue to partner closely with your executive team. When you’re personally responsible for millions upon millions of dollars in marketing spend, you can bet your senior team is going to be involved. Now, what types of questions are you going to get from your senior executive team? Often, they’ll ask about the latest news and trends (and what you’re doing to react). If you don’t know this stuff, you’re not going to instill much confidence in your executive team. And, if your executive team doesn’t have much confidence in you, you’re well on your way to sabotaging your own SEM career!

Bad Idea 8: Avoid Working Long Hours

I’ve said it over and over: SEM is a high powered career path. You’re going to grow quickly and the sky is truly the limit. With the power comes responsibility. You need to be ready to work long hours and truly “own” the campaigns you’re managing. Now, I think there’s also a question of perception here. If you’re super efficient like myself and leverage SEM automation to the max (see idea 3 above), it’s totally possible to work 8-9 hour days if you’re quick to respond to emails after hours and you also keep close track of the numbers at all times (see idea 2 above).

Let’s look at this from another perspective. I recommend staying away from the SEM career unless you truly love this stuff. Now, if you truly love this stuff it will be really easy to work those long hours!

Bad Idea 9: Don’t Put Much Thought Into Picking Your Employer

I’ve been extremely careful about picking my employers, and made it big in online marketing because of stock options in really powerful companies such as NexTag, QuinStreet, and Inflection. This was all intentional – I exercised great precision in picking my employers and viewed them as investments. If you put a lot of thought into choosing the right employer you could be sitting on a gold mine of stock options!

Bad Idea 10: Be a Poor Team Player

To close out, I want to highlight the importance of being a team player. Search engine marketing is a team sport. Search engine marketing often presents the unique opportunity to manage teams at a very early age within your overall career. Be a team player and it will truly take you places. If you’re not a team player, I recommend avoiding this career. Want to learn more? I recommend checking out my online marketing people management tips.

Image of Banana Peel © iStockPhoto – LuisPortugal

Investment Expertise Will Boost Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 26 1

As you may know from my about me, I was co-president of The Charles R. Blyth Fund, Stanford University’s prestigious real money investment club. My passion for investments actually dates all the way back to my high school days. I’m still addicted to the game and can’t get enough whether we’re talking public companies, private companies, or even commodities. You may be thinking, "What the heck does this have to do with pay per click search engine marketing?" Surprisingly, it has a whole lot to do with your SEM career.

Connect With Internet Executives on an Investment Level

Bull Market

I have a natural ability to hold lengthy conversations with executives. I’m very proud of my ability and it’s something that I’ve been leveraging since day one when I interviewed for my first PPC job in 2004. For a while, I didn’t really know why I had such successful relationships with senior executives. Now, I do. What am I typically talking to executives about? All aspects of investing!

At the end of the day, all executives are investors. All executives enjoy talking about investments. From my experience, all executives are passionate about investing in their personal portfolios, but let’s put that aside for a minute. Focusing just on the operations of your organization, executives are in strategic roles where they’re often making investment decisions for the company. They need to know the market thoroughly and are always thinking on a merger and acquisition level. From that perspective, it’s impossible to be an Internet executive without being an investor. Now, If you’re a passionate investor, you immediately have a common point of interest that you can leverage to make a great name for yourself and increase your odds of promotion.

Your Investment Knowledge Will Add Value To Your Company

Now, you may be thinking, "Ian, this sounds a bit superficial. So I’m supposed to shoot the bull with the executives about tomorrow’s hot stock and I’ll get promoted?" The short answer: Yes and no. There are two important takeaways here. As you get promoted, you’ll become a visible leader within your organization. You need to prove you can hold a conversation with the decision makers (and investing allows you to connect and prove your abilities).

Second, I truly believe your knowledge about investing will add serious strategy level value to your organization, which is exactly what leaders need to do. There exist a multitude of ways your investment knowledge could pay off greatly. I’d like to highlight just one small example next.

I’m passionate about sifting through thousands of small company stocks. One day, I took this passion to the next level by searching for small Internet businesses that could make great acquisition opportunities for my employer. I started frequenting sites like Buy Sell Website to find website investment opportunities. One day, I came across a perfect acquisition opportunity for my current employer. I drafted up a proposal and after our due diligence we ended up acquiring my recommended investment. Needless to say, this definitely helped my career.

Learning About Investment Essentials – A PPC Manager’s Guide

So this all sounds great, but you’re not sure where to start. First, there’s absolutely no reason to worry at all. You’re a pay per click search engine marketer. The tasks that you’re performing every single day are precisely the same skills that will help you become a great investor. You’re great with numbers, modeling, Excel, operating to a solid margin, and identifying growth opportunities. PPC is the quintessential operational role and it sets you up to become an investment superstar.

In terms of building your investment toolkit, following are my top pieces of advice specifically for those in pay per click search engine marketing:

As soon as you hit your stock option vesting cliff (typically one year after your start working for your employer), exercise at a least a percentage of your stock options. This will give you access to your company’s annual report, not to mention putting a little bit of your personal wealth on the line. Spend time reading your company’s annual report at length. You’ll learn a whole new dimension about your organization and will be armed with the very information that decision makers are pondering daily.
Know all the players in your industry, both public and private. You’re probably already familiar with your competition from the PPC landscape. Take it to the next level by researching them from a strategic investment perspective. A great place to start is Yahoo! Finance. The ties you’ll start forming between your operational knowledge and the strategy side of things are astounding. The ties will help you formulate and communicate your PPC strategy on a whole new level.
Read as many investing books as you can. I know, you have limited time. You need to make time. Robert Kiyosaki is a great introductory author and my favorite financial mentor. Over the years, I’ve read a huge number of investment books. Because you love PPC odds are you’ll get addicted to investment books like me!
Last, make sure to invest a few of your own dollars. There’s no better way to learn that putting your own money at risk. Never risk more than you can afford to lose and start small. Your company-sponsored 401k might be the best place to start. Then, consider a brokerage account and start investing in individual stocks. This experience will greatly reinforce everything else.

To close out, I want to underscore the importance investing as a tool to accelerate your SEM career. PPC and investing go and in hand. Armed with the two, you’ll start seeing major strategy opportunities and will climb the corporate ladder to become a PPC executive in your own right.

Image of Bull Market © iStockPhoto – Henrik5000

SEM Career Progress and Your Manager

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 22 4

When I first started my career in search engine marketing, I thought salary, title, and company were everything. Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are super important. However, at the end of the day, I now advise placing the most emphasis on selecting the right manager.

Where is Your Search Marketing Career Going?

As you might know by now, Robert Kiyosaki is my favorite financial author and mentor. One of the things he constantly highlights is the velocity of money. The rich keep their money moving. It goes from one solid investment to another and doesn’t sit still. This velocity keeps the portfolios of the rich growing. Through this lens, it’s not really about where you’re investing now, but where you’re going to be investing next.

I really like this concept because it applies perfectly to your career in SEM. Seriously! Our industry is moving very fast. The best strategies today will be commonplace tomorrow. If you’re not thinking one step ahead, you’re destined to plateau. I personally place significantly less importance on where I am today versus where I’m heading tomorrow. Now, the crux of the issue: Without a great manager, you’re not going to have sufficient velocity to achieve that next level of excellence. You’ll be stuck. While your current salary, title, and company are important, all of this is worth a lot less if you’re going to plateau in the high velocity industry of SEM (where the value of tomorrow is tremendous).

Bad SEM People Managers Will Hold You Back

As you may know from prior posts, I place tremendous emphasis on good people management. People management gets me up each and every morning! There’s nothing better than mentoring my team to success and promotion. Unfortunately, not all PPC people managers think like this. We’re in a very young industry with many SEM team leads having just a few years of work experience. I’ll cut right to the point: A bad manager can wipe all the velocity out of your promising SEM career.

How might a bad manager accomplish this? The worst PPC people managers:

Take personal credit for everything their team accomplishes
Spend little or no time coaching their team
Have low energy and are perfectly fine with a boring work environment
Rarely give their team exposure to senior management
Feel the need to compete with their own team members
Focus exclusively on themselves

Great PPC People Managers Give You Velocity

Now, how does a great SEM people manager differ from a bad one? Basically, they avoid every single thing on the above list! It’s really fundamental: The best SEM people managers give you velocity. They give you education. They give you visibility. They set your SEM career up for long-term success. They are selfless and take no credit for your work. They take full credit for your training, your morale, your progress, and your contribution to the organization. Moreover, a great SEM people manager will be your mentor for life regardless of whether you still report to them.

To close out, I’m writing this article because I have been blessed with great managers. My first manager is my mentor and friend to this day and I owe a lot of my own success (and managerial style) to him. If you take one thing away from this article, please place all the emphasis in the world on picking the right manager in your next SEM career move.

Keeping Detailed PPC Records

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 15 1

In pay per click search engine marketing, a lot is going on at once. Even more is going on if you follow my advice around making progress in your search engine accounts. Now, if you’re like most search engine marketers, your records may be less than perfect. Today, I’m excited to discuss my thoughts around records in PPC and why they’re import both for the health of your campaigns but also your personal SEM career growth.

Good Records Will Help Your SEM Career

PPC To Do List

I’m going to jump right to the fun stuff. How can good records in pay per click help your personal career? It’s simple: Records are the easiest way to remember all the hard work you have invested when the time comes for your performance review. Pay per click is a very fast paced career. We’re getting so much done and often switching tasks so quickly that it’s absolutely impossible to remember everything you’ve accomplished. Here’s where good records come in. Take the time to thoroughly document everything you’ve done and then leverage this information during your performance review. Even better, proactively send your manager regular updates on your (and your team’s) accomplishments. One of my all time top teachings about the search engine marketing game: If you don’t proactively take credit for the projects you’ve completed, you’ll never get credit. It’s up to you!

Good PPC Records Will Improve The Performance of Your Campaigns

Now, let’s see how good records will help the performance of your campaigns. (As a side note: Again, this really is a career boost for you as well because solid campaign performance is the engine behind rapid career progression.) It’s all really simple: Too much is happening in SEM. Just think about all the changes and all the different people involved! Not only are you making changes, but everyone on the team is making changes, your search engine reps are making changes, search engines are changing their algorithms, the engineering team is regularly updating the site, and the list goes on. Keep track of everything in a detailed manner and it will greatly improve your campaign management abilities. Good records will instantly answer many of your campaign questions.

How Do I Keep Good PPC Records?

So I’ve convinced you and you’re ready to improve your record keeping practices. I’ll start out with an interesting story. When I first started out managing teams in pay per click, I used to print out every single analysis my team completed and kept them all in a binder which I carried with me everywhere. If I ever got a question about what we were working on or what was happening with a campaign, I would quickly pull out the binder and flip to the right analysis. While this is an extreme example, there’s nothing wrong with it and it only makes you look more prepared as a PPC team manager.

While I’m not carrying around the binder these days, I still take incredibly good records. Following are my favorite tips:

First and foremost, leverage your company’s internal task list infrastructure (such as Sharepoint) if they have one. If they don’t, talk to your manager and request that your company invests in one. Even if I finish a project that only takes one hour, I’ll open a ticket and then immediately close it just so I have detailed records. At the end of the quarter, you can easily look at all the completed tasks both for yourself and your team.
Second, if you’re a people manager spend at least 20 percent of your time planning, forecasting, and keeping records. If you’re an individual contributor, spend at least 10 percent of your time. While this may sound extreme, I’m a big believer in SEM productivity leverage. If you simply take a step back, you will immediately improve your productivity. If you don’t take a step back, it’s very easy to get absolutely lost in the sea of projects going on, losing your ability to see up from down.
Third, regularly send updates to everyone involved including your team and manager. Even though you’re tracking your projects in Sharepoint or whichever system your company uses, don’t assume everyone is on the same page (especially your manager). Send regular email updates on what was accomplished, what’s on your list, relative priorities, and most importantly forecasted and real numbers.
Finally, always include numbers with everything. I’m sure you already know it: numbers are everything in pay per click. As a pay per clicker, you need to become a master at forecasting. Always forecast the benefits of each project, but make sure to close the feedback loop and report back on the accuracy of your forecast. If you’re able to accurately forecast and consistently deliver results, you will get promoted quite rapidly.

To close out, I hope I’ve convinced you to keep good records and leverage them to your advantage in growing both your personal SEM career and also your campaigns. Moreover, I hope these tips provide some "quick wins" in your search marketing career. One things is for sure: I will continue to push myself each and every day to keep great SEM records!

Moonlighting Will Accelerate Your SEM Career

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 3 11

Many companies out there discourage their employees from moonlighting. I can totally understand where they’re coming from. Salaries in SEM tend to be high and the company wants to get their money’s worth. Moreover, they want their employees getting the appropriate sleep and rest on their off-time so they can come in recharged. Also, there’s the big fear about employees actually working on their side business during company business hours. I’m here to not only argue the other side, but strongly encourage you to start your own business on the side. If you do it the right way, the ethical and mature way, it will only accelerate your corporate search engine marketing career. I personally run a small portfolio of websites and I cannot say enough about the business and SEO knowledge I’ve gained from my side web publishing business. I cannot say enough about my personal growth from this endeavor and its benefits in accelerating my corporate career!

Motivation For My Personal SEM Business: Passive Income

Moonlighting

I’d like to start out with my own story. The corporate route has been awesome for me, better than I could have ever imagined. However, I know more than anyone that things can change. As a low risk kind of guy, financial stability means everything to me. How do you achieve financial stability and freedom? In the words of my favorite author and mentor, Robert Kiyosaki, it’s all about passive income. We’re in a unique space where SEM is the cornerstone of passive income. Build some great web properties and with minimal ongoing support you can keep receiving Google AdSense and affiliate commission checks month after month after month! This alone was my strategy. In addition to income from my job, why not build up a small base of passive income from web publishing? It seemed obvious to me…

I Gained A World of SEO Knowledge Too

As someone who didn’t have a ton of money to invest in my side business, I decided to go the SEO route, with a little bit of PPC. I was more interested in slow growth fueled by free traffic from search engines versus fast growth fueled by pay per click traffic and the potential cash flow (and risk) issues that come with it. I’ll definitely say, without a doubt, that my hourly salary from my side business has been very low (although ramping as expected). I now do have a base of passive income that without fail comes in month after month. I’m extremely proud of it and take great pride in cashing my AdSense checks every month. However, what I value more than this stream of passive income is the SEO knowledge that I’ve learned.

As you know, the name of the site is PPC Ian and not SEO Ian. I’m “the man” when it comes to PPC, period. I’m good at SEO too, but not the industry authority. My next goal is getting to the VP of marketing level. How do I accomplish this? I need to fully understand all of the marketing channels thoroughly. My game plan: I need to learn the other marketing channels on my spare time because there’s never enough time at work. A side web publishing business is one of the best ways to learn SEO during your free time, an awesome byproduct that I never intended from my little side business.

I Learned Email Marketing Too

In addition to SEO, I’ve recently picked up email marketing. Once you have a solid base of SEO visitors, why not add AWeber to your site and start building some email lists and sending newsletters? During my regular job, the extent of my email experience lies primarily in advertising on second-tier email search engine AdKnowledge. The beauty of my side business is it’s taken my email knowledge to the next level, allowing me to harvest email lists, craft newsletters, and learn new tricks to extract more value form my web properties while rewarding my visitors with the best experience ever.

I Even Learned PR

You’ve already got the point, but I really want to drive it home. I have had the great opportunity to write and publish press releases for my websites, leveraging PRWeb. This is something that I simply wouldn’t have time for during my regular job where I’m heavily focused on pay per click. Because of my side business, I’ve gained valuable skills in SEO, Email Marketing, and PR, making me a very well rounded marketer. All of these skills have directly translated into higher quality output during my regular job, better intuition and judgment, a strong ability to manage people, while positioning myself for the VP of marketing role one day. It worked out perfectly because I always kept the context that my corporate job is my first priority and that I need to schedule and balance my activities carefully.

Disclaimer: Please Don’t Lose Sight of Your Primary Job

Here’s the big risk: You love your side business so much that it takes away from your regular job. It can take away in several ways. First, you may find yourself staying up too late, compromising your sleep. Second, you may find yourself thinking (or even worrying) about your business during work hours. Third, you may find yourself losing interest in your regular job because you like your side business more. This is where maturity comes in. You need to be mature and stay focused on your corporate career. You need to have the perspective to understand where the majority of your money is coming from and allocate time and mind share appropriately. You need to do what is right. If you’re mature about things and able to balance these risks with the rewards, I highly recommend starting a small business on the side.

Who knows, one day your small business may become your exit strategy. You may get to the director or VP level and then decide it’s time to make it on your own. This is all great stuff. In the short run, be mature about things and leverage your knowledge to do an even better job at work. You owe it to your employer and yourself to do the best job possible. Also, please remember, not all employers allow side businesses. Be open with your boss about things. Come up with a strategy to make it work. Perhaps you can make it your hobby to launch a site or two on the side, but not a “side business”. It’s all about perspective and following the rules. The equity value of integrity and reputation will pay dividends your entire life!